bigbookslilreads

[bigbookslilreads]

There is so much more life to live when you stop constantly obsessing over who will think you're a bad person or not understand you

I am learning this in the tiniest bites but it pierces me deeply

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[bigbookslilreads]

You can literally feel what makes you sicker and you can keep choosing it out of obligation and familiarity or you can slow down and ask yourself if you truly think you can survive it and if surviving is all you wanted to do

And then you start to understand what people meant when they say you can't help anyone else if you can't help yourself

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Circus Lane, Edinburgh, Scotland

cr: charmingwanders on instagram

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There isn’t enough time to do everything. i need my own pace. This life isn’t natural

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“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.”

— The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

[bigbookslilreads]

but! we! cannot! simply! sit! and! stare! at! our! wounds! forever!

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if i think about this too much i will sob my heart out

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pre menstrual sadness beats my ass every month and I can't do anything about it

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What she says: im fine

What she means: the average age of conception over the past 250k years is apparently 26.9. Let's round it down to 25. Think of your birth mother. Hold her hand. Imagine her holding hands with her mother. Within 4 people, you're back in time 100 years, and it's an intimate family dinner. Just after WWI. Add another 16 people, a small party of 20, and you're in the 1500s. Double it, twice, and you're at 80 people. Your family would fill a restaurant, and you're at the height of the Roman empire. At 100 people, Confucius is alive but Socrates has not yet been born. 100 people. That's a medium sized wedding. A small lecture theatre or concert. 200 people, probably the biggest party i could ever hope to host, takes you back 5000 years. The guests at your soirée of parents would be contemporaries of the Egyptian and Indus Valley civilisations, although you'd probably be too busy fixing drinks and nibbles to talk to all of them. Just imagine it. 200 of you. That's all it takes to get back 5,000 years. And we could go further. 1000 people, a decent sized concert, a large high school, and we're at the end of the last ice age. Your ancestors are comparing their pink floyd vinyl with music played on instruments carved from wood or bones of long vanished species. Wander through the crowd. See your own features and phrases and gestures refract out like a kaleidoscope. What would they make of you? What do you make of them? Why does it feel so unfair that even that first 100 years --that small family dinner of four--is out of your grasp? Maybe it's because questions of spatial distance have become negligible to us now. why, oh why, does time hold out against us so stubbornly

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[bigbookslilreads]

You guys rlly don't realise how much knowledge is still not committed to the internet. I find books all the time with stuff that is impossible to find through a search engine- most people do not put their magnum opus research online for free and the more niche a skill is the less likely you are to have people who will leak those books online. (Nevermind all the books written prior to the internet that have knowledge that is not considered "relevant" enough to digitise).

Whenever people say that we r growing up with all the world's knowledge at our fingertips...it's not necessarily true. Is the amount of knowledge online potentially infinite? Yes. Is it all knowledge? No. You will be surprised at the niche things you can discover at a local archive or library.

[bigbookslilreads]

as each year goes by I feel more and more lost and also more and more like myself

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The Night Circus Impressions #1

So, I started reading the Night Circus today, (and I can feel that half-written paper for my ICU class glaring at me, but who cares). And I am intrigued.

SPOILERS FROM HERE AN ON in case someone else also lived under a rock and only now is reading the book.

Granted I am a measly 28 pages in, but I already have quite a few opinions, and I am trying to keep my brain from diving too far in character analysis so soon. But so far I rly like the contrast between Prospero/ Hector and "Alexander".

The initial impression, albeit only for a few lines as they meet for the first time would have you believe that perhaps Hector is kind of the better option of the two, for a mentor. But that's how he is initially presented to us. He is presented as rly charismatic, and magnetizing and well, he is a performer. Alexander on the other hand comes off as stand offish and entirely too critical, and perhaps a bit cold.

As the narration continues though, we see that Hector has this... obsessive almost interest in his daughter's abilities and to the external observer he seems to look for ways to exploit them, even as he "trains" her. I cannot find the exact word for it, but he treats it like a business opportunity. He sees her abilities, her "Talent" and not her. And he only seems to care for it too. He is eccentric and awfully insistent in participating in that so called game, and from what I have seen so far in the narration he is petty and cruel even at times. He is wholly uninterested in what she likes and all but fights her for it -although at a later point he seems to have stopped antagonizing her interest for books so much, and he uses her like a circus attraction of sorts with her readings. I rly want to see where this goes as the book progresses

Then we have the man in the grey suit. Stand offish though he is, he seems to take greater care of his mentee than Hector. And a completely different approach to their capabilities. We see runes and symbols, we see him disapproving of Hectors theatrics. He is presented as more steadfast and methodical, and when he imparts something to Marco it feels more direct and clear, even to the reader. He also seems to be an absent enough, but somewhat caring figure, if only for the purposes of the game and Marco's training. He is no less aloof and secretive than Hector, but so far, through the boy's eyes he seems to be doing a far better job at preparing him for the game.

Reading abt those two feels like watching an argument about whether innate ability or talent is better than practicing or training.

Anyhow, I am going back to that paper.. ugh, More thoughts when I progress a bit with the plot.

See y' all later

[bigbookslilreads]

someone said we had more fun in childhood because we didnt have any past memories to linger on and it has stuck with me ever since

[bigbookslilreads]

It’s really lovely how laughter just loosens the mind, opens the curtains

[bigbookslilreads]

Uehara Konen - Waves